[leafnode-list] Timeout vs. client messups

[Matthias Andree <ma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear reader,

because the list of clients that mess up because of the 400 message we
send before disconnecting in a timeout situation, keeps growing and now
lists three of the major Unix text-mode clients, I've chosen to
anticipate upcoming standards and drop the 400 reply. The next leafnode
*_ma* release will no longer send that reply.

I still think it's the wrong place to fix, but then, compatibility
outweighs RFC conformance, and we'll see how this works out.

If you want to help test the new behaviour, apply this patch to your
current leafnode 2.0b8_ma10pre3 source (it should apply to 2.0b8_ma9,
but I'm not trying this), recompile and install leafnode (no need to run
texpire -r if you've previously run 2.0b8_ma9 or newer). Please report
back how your clients behave as you leave your news reader idle for some
minutes, particularly, the "No such article" (or similar) message in tin
and posting failures if you write a longer article with your editor
should go away:

Index: nntpd.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/emma/mycvsroot/leafnode/nntpd.c,v
retrieving revision 1.35
diff -u -r1.35 nntpd.c
--- nntpd.c	2002/02/20 03:45:31	1.35
+++ nntpd.c	2002/02/21 10:44:04
@@ -248,13 +248,12 @@
     }
     ln_log(LNLOG_SWARNING, LNLOG_CTOP,
 	   "Warning: premature EOF in client input.");
-#ifndef NOT_YET
-    /* this will become obsolete when the new NNTP standards are
-       published around December 2001 or Early 2002, we'd drop the 400
-       error message then. Until then, we send it in compliance with
-       RFC-977 p. 23 */
-    nntpprintf("400 service discontinued: EOF");
-#endif
+    /* We used to send 400 before disconnecting, but the list of clients
+     * reported broken keeps growing, and lists tin, slrn and pine,
+     * three major text-mode news readers. We anticipate upcoming NNTP
+     * standards by silently disconnecting. The 400 error message we
+     * used to send was sent in compliance with
+     * RFC-977 p. 23 */
 }
 
 /*

-- 
Matthias Andree

GPG encrypted mail welcome, unless it's unsolicited commercial email.

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